Lo!. I started the Bally Atlantis club. I've also owned Escape From the Lost World. "Cheesy Charm" is the foundation of this series, lovable despite the engineering and construction woes, nobody should shy away from playing one, or even owning one once. Good thread concept, because while there is some info out there, it appears not quite as deep as some of the other game series.

I route a Blackbelt and a Special Force. They are a little bit more of a mystery than I'd prefer, so I'll join the club.

Cool idea for a club. There are enough common issues with these pins that it is nice to have a common place to go for tech help.

I own a Special Force, and it usually works for a few months before something breaks. It was out of commission for quite some time due to the solenoid expander relay. It worked intermittenly because of cold solder joints. I had never done board repair work before, so I was afraid to touch it in case I messed up my only semi-functioning relay board. I finally found a new one from Marco Specialties and then decided to try my hand at repairing the old. I'm happy to report that I repaired it successfully and gained a bunch of confidence in doing so.

Anyway, happy to be a member here.

Great club.

I loved Atlantis when I had it. Just a really cool theme and layout.

Currently have a Heavy Metal Meltdown. I’m not a big fan of the flippers of that era but you can’t win them all.

I do not have any 6803 games, but I created Tech Charts for all these games.
You can find them on my website http://www.inkochnito.nl
Look in the Tech Charts section.
If you find any errors, please let me know and I'll correct them.

Peter

Cool, I'm in!

I've owned 3 6803s

Hardbody
Atlantis - https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-bally-atlantis-that-i-discovered
Motordome

Only have the Motordome left, currently getting a restore, mylar and glue removal last night, some paint came with but I'll touch that up no problem.

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Just joined the club yesterday! Mine needs a bit of work, which is half the reason I bought it.
Funny thing is, when I bought it I had wrongly assumed that this was a -35 era Bally and was very surprised when I found out it was released in ‘85.
Anyway, I will try to document what I learn here as I go.

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First issue: Ones digit in all 4 displays is out. I find sparse 6803 repair documentation in the usual places. Is the troubleshooting for the displays similar to that of the earlier Ballys?

Try here:
http://stevekulpa.net/pinball/bally_disp6r.htm

You can get a .pdf copy of the manual here: https://www.ipdb.org/files/761/Bally_1985_Eight_Ball_Champ_Manual.pdf

I would refer you to a place that would sell an original copy of the manual, but it seems that everyone who has one wants to keep it.

Your EBC looks really great! Mine apparently has had a little bit rougher life and we are going through some growing pains together.

I agree that it is a really fun game for what it is: single ball, single level, shooter. It makes you pretty much earn every drop. I don't get many hits from bouncing off the slingshots, but I do occasionally get double-hits from the top flipper (the old 1-ball 7-ball combo if you will).

I have a nice working Squawk & Talk with Eight Ball Champ roms available and a 6803 power module board for sale. The power board is like mint, like new.

Atari_Daze Wouldn't to happen have detailed dimensions for your new cabinet build? I need to replace the pressboard cabinet on my Party Animal re-theme.

Flipper buttons definitely spark. I never noticed the other switches spark, but they probably do. Not as big a spark as the flippers, for sure.

No unfortunately I don't, there were lots of mistakes with my measurements I corrected on the fly. I vowed to make better notes on the next one.

I’m in

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I’m in!
Currently rebuilding this City Slicker that had fallen off a truck at one point and basically exploded. Rebuild part of the cab and now it’s flipping, time to shop it!

Still need a 6803 lockdown bar!

https://www.pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/city-slicker-blown-to-smithereens-quick-and-dirty-cab-repair-helplep#post-4802991

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Good timing, as I'm currently in the (slow) process of refurbishing a Black Belt. This thing was disgustingly dirty and had a handful of problems when I got it. Slowly but surely making progress when I have the time, but I'll hit you guys up when I inevitably run into issues.

Btw, I HATE these bulb sockets. No apparent easy way to get to the bulbs (since the sockets' common wire is tight to the playfield and the solder would get broken off it I backed out the screws), so I've had to just bend each socket arm back (very tight access in some places). Then, the sockets themselves are ridiculously tight, hard to get the old bulbs out and new bulbs in. My fingers were practically blistered by the end of the night after replacing all the bulbs under the playfield.

Ya, bending back the lamps is sometimes the best way. Several of the hex screw heads were soldered to the mounts on my machine. I figure if I break the mount, I have the same amount of solder work either way. Not the best quality workmanship, which was a real problem in most US industries back in the 80's...

Well, I'm glad I didn't miss some other easier option. My fingers still hurt, lol...

Any tips for getting a flaky socket to work more consistently, other than replacement?

I need one of these as well.

duplicate

Just got my second 6803 a hardbody and I love it. If u get past the back glass so fun but also fast. Also have a Party Animal and there is a Special Forces I am looking at (really liked it when I tried it). Have heard bad things about the 6803 system but so far no problems for me (knock on wood). The Special Force is a little more then it should be but looks great, almost bought but guy talked me out of it by saying how much of a hassle they can be. So i guess my question is do they just get a bad rap or can i have more problems with them then others (my 2 80s williams actually drive me nuts, blown fuses all the time). I mean they are priced great and just as much fun I think.

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Some issues with cost cutting and cheap construction.

My biggest issue (so far)is the lack of repair documentation available.

I don't have much experience, but it seems to me that the 6803 board is pretty decent. It is fairly robust and supports lots of flashers and switches so that games can be fairly complex but not confusing. I had to repair my control board once from something that happened with a prior owner and once that I messed up. There are no hard to find parts on the board (although replacement control boards are pretty much not available now). There is plenty of room to make repairs on the board. There are some mods available. I highly recommend Pinitech's 6118 NVRAM to replace the battery (simple plug and play replacement and boom, no battery required), and there are several companies that offer LED displays that drive just fine from the control board without using high voltage from the power module. The wonkiness of my Eight Ball Champ is more in the flippers, saucer assembly, and cheap MDF cabinet construction than it is the 6803 system. The flippers are actually way better than many 80's era linear flippers, but parts are a little bit unique. My game plays just fine and is fun.

If Bally would have survived and evolved into ramp/multiball machines, I think the 6803 would be more common and probably a bit more revered. It seems like there is plenty of bandwidth on the board to do more stuff and add modules. I think they probably would have been able to upgrade/improve the squawk and talk (and ditch the cheap squeak system) and keep up with new display technology for quite a while. Adding alphanumeric displays to new games seemed fairly simple, for example.

I find that between my game manual and http://www.pinrepair.com/6803/ , there isn't much left to the imagination.

I’ll give that a shot. I assumed that the issue was inside the socket since I could get it to work briefly with a lot of wiggling of the bulb.

I have 2 used bars in fair condition, but I need to get measurements. One I am pretty sure is a Bally, the other is from a WPC. If your interested I need details on the dimensions so I can ID them for you?

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I have a great Strange Science. The neon is blue and the displays are blue, it really ties it into the theme. Underrated game for sure.

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I asked this in the Escape From the Lost World Club, but I figured I would ask here too.

Has anyone had issues with broken flipper bushings with the linear flippers? I've replaced all of the bushings on Escape because they crack on the top first, then eventually the bottom. I'm going to re-read vid's guide to make sure I'm not missing something, but I don't know why this is happening. I've rebuild flippers on other games and I haven't had this problem.

Who are you buying the bushings from? I have only gotten ones from pinballrescource and have never had problems.

They were on it when I bought the game. The replacement that I put in that broke was from Marcos. I have pinball life bushings in now, hopefully they hold up.

This may help:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/flipper-bushing-keeps-cracking

Looks awesome! I like the blue displays!

I'm kind of hoping to get a Strange Science again some day. Had one a while back, sold it.. not because I didn't like it but we had too many games already and trying to get down to half a dozen or so in the end. But man, it's such a cool looking game with the topper and playfield art, and neat sounds too. There's without a doubt a few Bally 6803 games that are underrated and this is one.

My gripes on the 6803 are probably same as anyone else. Cabinet build with the particle board and zero cabinet art. Lamp to illuminate the backglass. The transformer mounting in the backbox like it does was just a horrible idea IMO. There's then the "weirdness" in how they did some of the electronics, but after working on a few machines you get used to some of that.

I've only had a chance to try EBC and Strange Science. I hear Hardbody is decent. I'll have to make more of an attempt to track down some of these titles at pinball shows and at least give them a whirl.

Cool, thanks for the link I somehow didn't find that in my searches. I will check out my flippers and see if there is contact being made.

The one I have is 22 1/4 x 2 3/4
The lock down portion is about 14 1/8 from center to center. Each lock is about 1 inch wide, just less than 1 1/2" tall with the gap about a 1/2 from the end.

Neither of the two bars you have look like mine (doesn't mean it would fit) For one thing my bar is welded, so there is no "bolt" head on the other side.
I think the 6803 bar (at least the one for my EBC) is different than the typical bally one. But not really sure.

My lock down bar has the two bolt heads on it.

My Eight Ball Champ that I recently picked up had no sound. During boot up, it would only give 4 flashes which would indicate an issue with U8, the TMS5200 speech chip. I tried re-seating the chip with no success. I searched online and with some difficulty was able to find a vendor that still sold the chips. Honestly, I wasn’t really expecting this to work but I popped in the new chip and now I have sound and speech!

I was having this issue with my EFTLW about every 4-5 months. It was at our pinball co-op where it got regular play. Side note- Pinball Life has lockdown bars. I got one of their "seconds" for a good deal. I think it had one tiny scratch on it. It still looked way better than the one that was on my Party Animal.

Can you share the vendor?

https://www.twistywristarcade.com/atari/806-tms5200-.html?search_query=Speech&results=2

Probably should have bought a spare, but they’re not cheap.

When I first fired up the machine I was getting all sorts of stuck switch errors and had to cut off several capacitors. What is the consensus on replacing these?

So far I haven’t noticed any issues.

You need the caps. The switches won’t always register hits without them.

BEST TOPIC EVER!!!

I'm a 6803 addict. It started with Special Force a few years ago. I think Dennis Nordman did a masterful job for his first game, considering what he had to work with. The Williams platform was just so much stronger and High Speed came out the same year.
I was so taken by this game that I hunted everywhere to locate the rare Special Force Girls alternate backglass that was commissioned by Bally Wulf in Germany. It's probably worth more than the game itself

I have also owned Strange Science, Motordome, Black Belt and I'm currently restoring a protoype Heavy Metal Meltdown.

Big love out to you fellow 'turd-polishers' that have taken the insane path of restoring these ugly duckiling pins. God bless you!

The Heavy Metal Meltdown is a great story.
It's the only proto spec HMM that I'm aware of with intact mechs. The original code was lost but I went on a bit of a grail hunt. I even tracked down Rehman Merchant, but to no avail. Finally I ended up working with a very talented programmer to get the drop target and related prototype features working again.
I'll post some pics below... but for anyone really interested, here's my original thread. It's nearly 2 years old, but I've started updating it as the cabinet and shop job are nearly done.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/my-proto-heavy-metal-meltdown-adventure

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In my experience, rollovers definitely need caps to register reliably and I would bet other momentary switches (like the "paddle" switches behind drop targets) probably work better with good caps in place. I had a rollover switch with a bad cap and the game would set a new high score if you just left the machine alone long enough. After cutting out the cap, it registered maybe 80% of quick rollovers but resolved the ghost scoring issue (and would test out OK in the stuck switch test). With a new cap installed, it works again with higher reliability.